Thermalright Venomous X CPU Cooler Review

External Impressions

Anyone familiar with the Ultra 120 will see the Venomous X heritage right away. This is mainly due the fact that the design is pretty much the same with some subtle changes to the cooler itself. The most noticeable change is the profile of the cooling fins. The biggest change is in the new mounting base: more on that in a moment.

Looking from the side we can see Thermalright kept the winglet design and six heatpipes. There are 47 fins on the Venomous X; the Ultra 120 had 52. Thermalright also increased the spacing between the fins to allow the air flow from the fans to flow easier and pull the heat away faster.

The new fin profile has a saw tooth look to it. If you visualize in your head and connect the saw tooth points you get a bunch of X’s.

The Venomous X still uses the winglet design from the Ultra 120 design. The winglets help minimize air flow resistance.

The base of the Venomous X comes protected by a sticky plastic cover.

The base of the Venomous X has a mirror polish to it so nice you could use it to shave. It’s also slightly convex, or humped, in the middle to cause more pressure on the CPU heat spreader.

The dimple on the base of the heat sink is for centering the cooler on the CPU. This was on both Thermalright coolers, but the Venomous X HSF uses this for the pressure adjustment screw. The screw fits in the dimple to center it and the large base plate helps apply and even out the pressure.